- Somewhat Celebratory Publisher’s Note
Hey, everyone …
Today’s edition of the freedom movement’s daily newspaper is the six thousandth edition as “Rational Review News Digest.” The first edition under that brand came out on December 23, 2002.
Of course, we’ve been around since 1991 as Libernet and then Freedom News Daily (I tell that whole story at least a couple of times a year, so I’ll spare you the extended verbiage today). but wow … 6,000 editions! Very cool! And thanks to our readers for sticking with us!
Side note: Over the course of more than 24 years, it is quite possible (indeed, likely) that I have occasionally forgotten to manually add one to the edition count, or maybe (less likely) accidentally incremented that count by two instead of one. So I guess this COULD be the 5,997th edition or the 6,001st edition. I apologize if that’s the case.
And, of course, the note that I always append to these moments: We’re reader-supported. You’re a reader. Please consider supporting us with a one-time donation or a little something every month at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a great week!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - Oil prices soar as Iranian regime names Khamenei’s son supreme leader
Source: NBC News
“Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s slain supreme leader, and widely viewed as a hardliner, has been named his successor. … Oil prices have surged past $100 per barrel as the war intensifies, though Trump said the spike will be ‘short term’ and ‘a very small price to pay.’ Israel hit Iranian oil depots over the weekend, while Tehran has targeted energy sites across the region and throttled the key Strait of Hormuz waterway. The U.S. military announced the death of another service member, bringing the total killed in combat to seven.” (03/09/26)
- US regime publicly confesses to six more maritime murders
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The US military said it [murdered] six men on Sunday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged traffickers. Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the administration began targeting ‘narco-terrorists’ in small vessels in September. As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs.” (03/08/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/09/us-military-drug-boat-strike-pacific
- Nepal: Rapper-politician Balendra Shah unseats ex-PM as he heads for victory
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Rapper Balendra Shah has defeated the former Nepalese Prime Minister Sharma KP Oli in his parliamentary constituency, as he takes a step closer to becoming Nepal’s next prime minister. Nepal’s Election Commission confirmed on Saturday that Shah, 35, received 68,348 votes compared to Oli’s 18,734 to unseat the former leader in his constituency. Thursday’s general election — the first since violent youth-led protests toppled the government in September — pitted the establishment against a new generation of politicians advocating for angry, young Gen Z voters hungry for change. Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) is now seemingly on course to win the general election.” (03/08/26)
- Trump says he won’t sign any bills into law until Congress passes election-rigging bill
Source: The Hill
“President Trump on Sunday threatened to not sign any bills into law until the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act is approved by the Senate, doubling down on his push to change voting requirements ahead of the midterm elections. ‘I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY…,’ the president wrote in his Sunday morning Truth Social post. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the president will sign a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security amid the partial government shutdown.” (03/08/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5773642-trump-save-act-senate-pressure/
- Trump vows new wars of aggression across Latin America
Source: Politico
“President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military into Ecuador this week to strike drug cartels, and now he’s poised to do the same in more than a dozen other Latin American countries under a new proclamation he signed Saturday. In remarks before the signing ceremony, flanked by the leaders of many of those countries, Trump described the proclamation as ‘a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks.’ He touted the U.S. military’s ‘amazing weaponry’ — and said all the other Latin American countries need to do is identify the location of cartel operatives.” (03/07/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/07/trump-military-cartels-latin-america-iran-00818070
- The Operation was a Success, But the Patient Died
Source: Notablog
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra“This war with Iran is an extension of the dynamics that have always driven US foreign policy. And nothing will stop this President from the path of destruction he has chosen — certainly not the Congress, which has long been ceding its constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch. Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson denies that the US is even involved in a ‘war.’ And Senate Republicans have blocked any war power limits to this operation, giving Trump a rubberstamp to do whatever the hell he wants. The warmongers among us serve the administration by labeling as ‘traitors’ those who oppose US intervention abroad. This has become a virtual rite of passage for critics in times of war.” (03/07/26)
https://notablog.net/2026/03/07/the-operation-was-a-success-but-the-patient-died/
- Neo-Trumpers: The Next Mutation?
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg“A New York Times columnist offering pointers for ‘Pitchfork Pat’ Buchanan-type populists on ‘the isolationist right who thought Trump shared his views’ might seem akin to a mad scientist named Frankenstein offering a road map to a pitchforks-and-torches peasant mob. Yet Michelle Goldberg does just that in ‘The President Was Never Antiwar’ (March 2). While maintaining that Donald Trump was indeed the embodiment through which ‘the once marginalized politics of Patrick Buchanan became a dominant force in the Republican Party,’ Goldberg insists that ‘Trump was never Buchanan’s heir when it came to foreign policy.’ … While ‘it is true that he broke with key elements of neoconservative ideology,’ he hasn’t distanced himself from even ‘the most fanatical of neoconservatives,’ preferring instead to discard the ideology’s ‘notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism.'” (03/07/26)
- And just like that MAGA peaceniks transform into neocons
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut“MAGA’s philosophical twists and turns are hard to follow given that whenever Donald Trump changes his mind his supporters have three go-to approaches. First, they claim his latest notion is part of a 3D chess game even if, by all appearances, Trump would struggle to play one-level tic-tac-toe. Second, they distract our attention: Didn’t Barack Obama do this, too? Third, they get with the program and shamelessly back whatever the president is doing. Sometimes MAGA-supporting influencers with their own agendas and philosophies take issue with some Trump policy. But rank-and-file MAGA always follows the Dear Leader even if it means contradicting some Deeply Held Principle they espoused weeks ago.” (03/06/26)
- The War He’s Always Wanted
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan“For me and many others, the Iraq War of 2003 was a life-altering lesson in humility. In the wake of 9/11, with trauma warping my frontal cortex, I backed a pre-meditated, pre-emptive war for regime change in the Middle East — something stupid and immoral I soon realized, however well intentioned. It changed me. But at least in those tense, polarized months of 2002 and 2003, we had hashed out the case for war thoroughly beforehand, as democracies do. … Come with me a little further back in time to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. That was a war started by Saddam Hussein, not us. How did we go about a new war in the Middle East back then? Well, we had another big public debate, another trip to the UN, and then another vote in the Congress. It was closer than we remember: just 52-47 in the Senate (with one abstention). … Seems like another planet, doesn’t it?” (03/06/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-war-hes-always-wanted-c47
- Run Rampant
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“We live in a great Age of Conspiracy Theories. I’m not quite on board. As the Internet grew up, with it came all the condemnations of conspiracy theories, run rampant. The Internet, we were told, was problematic in that not only was information readier at hand than ever before, but so was it easier to share and nurture all these goofy conspiracy theories. You know: JFK was killed by someone other than Oswald, or also by others, in addition to Oswald. Or … UFOs are real, and the government is covering it up. Or the Rothschilds are behind it all. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. Ick. Yet: The government now admits that UFOs are real …. Further: As we uncover the grotesquerie in the Epstein Files, we learn that he proudly served Rothschild banking interests! So let’s not get started on the JFK assassination.” (03/06/26)
- The US Soldiers Killed In This War Were Not Heroes
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“The US soldiers who are getting killed in the war with Iran were not heroes. They did not die defending their country. They did not die fighting to protect Americans. They died advancing the geostrategic agendas of oligarchs and empire managers which benefit ordinary Americans in no way. It’s important not to valorize these people for two reasons. Firstly, it assists US military recruitment by falsely portraying these imperial stormtrooper careers as noble and heroic. Secondly, it falsely frames the war they died in as a righteous cause which is making the world a better place, rather than as a war of aggression against a nation that posed literally zero threat to their homeland. These are not harmless little white lies. They are extremely destructive propaganda narratives which facilitate acts of mass military slaughter on real human beings. Don’t assist the warmongers in circulating these lies.” (03/07/26)
- It’s up to Congress to disrupt Pam Bondi’s Epstein cover-up
Source: USA Today
by Chris Brennan“U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice have been openly violating a federal law for two and a half months to shield President Donald Trump from transparency in the metastasizing ‘Epstein files’ scandal. And now Bondi will get a second chance at explaining herself in Congress. But based on her last performance before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in February, expect only more pathetic theatrics and zero acceptance of accountability. Still, something has shifted …. It looks like Bondi will finally face some tough questions from members of her own political party about how she has botched the release of the Epstein files. And that’s long overdue.” (03/08/26)
- Is It War?
Source: Reason
“America’s longest, most depressing game show.” (03/07/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 331
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Not today, Jesus.” (03/07/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-331-not-today-jesus